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Happy Friday! I might as well just call this a giveaway blog at this point, no? I’m still playing catch up since returning from Japan and when I looked at the calendar, I shook my head in pure disbelief that over a week had already passed and that we are yet again traveling (this time domestically, to visit M’s family in Indiana).

But lucky you, I have a backlog of Tuttle Books I’m happy to give away and this one is a particularly good one. I would keep it, except K can no longer fit into the largest size. Besides, the patterns in this book are precisely the kind that I drool over but hold very little interest for her. I mean, look at those dresses and skirts!!

Anyhow, if you’d like to win a copy of Sew Sweet: Handmade Clothes for Girls, please leave a comment. As always, any comment is great, but perhaps you’d like to share a favorite summer dish? I love making pesto pasta because it’s easy and quick and refrigerates well. Who wants to slave over the stove in this heat, right?

OK! I will have to skip yet another couple of weeks due to travel, but will be back again on August 4th. Happy end of July, everyone!

K made me a ring. She glued one of those aquarium glass beads to a broken metal band that she scrounged up from somewhere. Then she tucked it inside a clasping shell container and wrote a note.

Because this came in the mail:

I probably don’t have to tell you that I became quite emotional. I had a moment of terror before I opened the box. “What if I hate it? What if I feel disappointed?”

I don’t, I wasn’t. No, not even close. There are too many things I love about it to list them here. The compact square size. The gorgeously textured cover with a slightly vintage feel. The matte paper. The fact that something that was a molecule of an idea turned into a real, tangible, tactile book. I am so overwhelmed.

I had to run an errand at a bookstore yesterday, and I found myself sitting at one of the little round tables in the kids’ section. I stared at the display of books by local authors and thought to myself in disbelief, “My book is gong to be there.” I think the employees were a little worried about the crazy lady squeezed in the kiddy chair crying like a baby.

Just a little sneak peak for today — I’ll show more in the coming weeks along with some behind-the-scenes posts, and I am making plans for a giveaway since I have these lovely advance copies (though most are already spoken for). Perhaps you’d like to pre-order if you haven’t already? I hope so…The month of May seems far away, but I have a feeling it’ll be here in no time.

Also, thank you to everyone who sent me well-wishes and comments on Instagram (I’m not very good about keeping up there. It’s something I’d like to work on because I enjoy it).

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SVE update! Final tally has us at 99 participants (Ute and I are big softies and weren’t exactly strict about our deadline)!!!! Nearly 100 folks from 20 countries — mind boggling. All the partner info have gone out and this is incredibly exciting, friends! Please make sure to let us know if you’ve received your partner info at secret.valentine.exchange@gmail.com if you haven’t already, and don’t hesitate to contact us there if you have any questions.

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Happy Friday and Happy Weekend, everyone!

What? Dreams do come true?It’s been on my bucket list:A book of my own*

*Until I laid my hand on the cover of my book, I realized that I didn’t for a second believe that this was actually happening. The mind, it works in strange ways. P.S. Thank you also for the kind comments earlier this week. The lows are not so bad — part of life, right?

See Part 1 here — at some point I might create a collage with all the clothes of 2014 together.

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Grand total for the latter half of 2014 was 30 garments. Compared to last year? 58. Which comes out to 66 (2014) vs 129 (2013) for the grand, grand total. Hmmmm. Even 66 items sound like a ton of clothes, and when you consider that she still fits into the majority of the stuff I’ve made in the last couple of years…well, as you can imagine, her closet and dresser are packed to the gills.

What was awesome this year #1: I really focused on clothes that I knew K would like and as a result, she’s worn almost everything I’ve made regularly. Major win.

What was not awesome this year #1: Because I focused on clothes that I knew K would like, I often felt more like a custom tailor and less like the fashion designer I’d fancied myself in the past. Although I tried to inject my own taste into the clothes as much as possible, most of the items I sewed were dictated by K’s preferences, which meant a lot of animal print. Y’all know how I feel about animal print.

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What was awesome this year #2: I’m a knits-sewing samurai at this point, and have zero fear of the stretchy substrate. I would love to own a coverstitch machine one day for that extra professional look since I dislike twin needles, but I can live with my zig zag stitches.

What was not awesome this year #2: I felt like I didn’t challenge myself much. Sure, there were some fake fur projects thrown in there, and that rain jacket material was no walk in the park, and okay, the skinny jeans pushed my sewing skills. Still, I want to up my game and try more advanced methods and professional-grade finishes. I want to try silk and chiffon and leather and crazy complicated plackets. Architectural details. Hong Kong seams. This makes me think of a lovely woman I met recently, who owns a great shop here in Seattle. She creates her own line of children’s clothes and her skills are impeccable. Her background is in bridal wear, but when she told me, “I can sew…well, anything,” (in a totally non-braggy way), I knew I wanted to be able to say the same. Still not quite there.

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What was awesome this year #3: Even after almost two-and-a-half years of sewing pretty much every week for K, I still love it love it love it. Despite my grumbles about embarking on yet another leopard print outfit, I find myself slipping into that comforting meditative state when I cut the fabric, pin them together and position the pieces under the presser foot. And then the hum of the sewing machine starts (interspersed with the jarring roar of the serger which is less Zen), all the while I listen to an audiobook or whatever podcast I’m enthralled with at the moment…there’s nothing like it.

What was not awesome this year #3: As I mentioned, I’m still struggling with the best way to practice my sewing without creating this extravaganza of a wardrobe that only a former shopaholic could produce. The obvious answer would be to sew for other people or focus on home decor/accessories or open a shop of some sort. Through trial and error, though, what I’ve discovered is that the particular combination of sewing clothes for K is what makes my heart go pitter patter. To get even more specific, it’s creating the clothes that suit my taste in K’s size that I find completely inspiring. This poses an added layer of challenge as K’s opinions and tastes become stronger and more distinct from mine. And though I love making clothes for myself and I’m also leaps and bounds more comfortable stitching up things for other people, it’s oddly not as satisfying. Making clothes for K will always remain my favorite type of sewing.

Oh, and the shop idea could easily devolve into a sweatshop situation which I’m not sure I can handle.

So to make this utterly first world dilemma a non-issue and more awesome next year, I’ve decided that I’m going to stop feeling guilty and just make what I want, when I want because I am still solidly in the skills-development phase. My ultimate goal is to be able to sew anything at the highest quality level, but the joy is in the practice of sewing for me, and I have a seedling of an idea for a giving project in the works for any excess/unloved clothes that result. I’ll share more as my idea takes shape.

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Overall, though, 2014 was wonderful and that’s a wrap for K’s 2014 handmade outfits! You can see 2013 here and 2012 here. Whew. Did someone say cray cray?

And tomorrow is the first day of 2015 — Happy New Year, my friends!!!!!

Imagine this: I am newly graduated, fresh-faced and eager to make my mark in the business world. I’ve garnered a job at a swanky beachside marketing company, overlooking the frenetic consumer activity of the Santa Monica Third Street Promenade shopping district. I am earning more money than I ever have, though it really only came out to about $1500 per month after taxes. But no matter, I live with my best friend in a dirt cheap apartment, I have virtually no expenses and by my calculations, I have a disposable income of about $700 a month. $700! How I wish I’d socked those dollars away and invested – I’d be a multimillionaire by now. My shiny new credit card sits in my wallet, for emergencies only, obviously. Soon enough, however, I seem to be using it an awful lot for non-emergency situations because who likes to carry around wads of cash? And at the time, debit cards were not de rigueur.

I ate out for lunch every day. Swipe, went the credit card. I would meet friends for drinks and dancing, or maybe hit up the trendiest restaurants. Swipe, swipe. I was a stone’s throw away from the mall after all, so it became a daily habit to stop off at various shops after work. Many, many swipes. I was lavish with gifts for friends and family, but was even more lavish with gifts for myself. After about six months, I automatically reached for my beloved plastic. I found more and more ways to spend money that seemed worthwhile in the moment – I discovered that facials did amazing things for my adult-onset acne, so I booked regular appointments. “Do you take Visa?” I asked the facialist. Of course she did. $700 a month can buy a lot of things.

Except. One month, I got my bill and it was just over $700. I was puzzled. How could that be? I was certain that I’d been tracking all of my expenditures and scanned the itemized list. Oh, I’d forgotten about that birthday dinner for my co-worker. Yikes, is that how much I spent on clothes? I told myself that I would buy less the following month and sheepishly paid it in full.

But the same thing happened the next month, and the month after that. I would be just a hair over my monthly budget and would vow to cut back. After a few months of this, I broke my cardinal rule: I paid only half of my bill. I feverishly reasoned that the interest wouldn’t be that much and I would pay it in full the next time. I always do, I promised myself. Besides, I’ve learned my lesson and I’ll stop my mindless shopping. Famous last words. The moment I allowed that exception to my credit card payment credo to happen — that was the precise moment I lost control. Something in me cracked, and my yo-yo money dieting took effect, the ever-expanding mass of compounding interest gleefully latching on.

Shortly after I broke my rule, I got a promotion and a sizable increase in salary, and not only did my responsibilities and workload increase, so did my debt. Gone were the days of paying off my balance in full, and I rationalized that I was still paying more than the minimum. Underneath my excuses, I had a mounting sense of terror. I knew I was losing a grip on my financial situation, but I couldn’t seem to reverse the problem. My shopping habit was firmly entrenched, and I became an expert at justifying my spending. And every month when the bill came, I would hold my head in my hands, full of guilt and remorse. I wanted to confide in someone but was petrified of the judgement, the scorn. I’d always been the responsible, competent one, the one who took care of others. I had worked over thirty hours a week all four years of university to pay my way through school while my friends partied – the notion that I wouldn’t be able to pay off “a little” debt seemed ridiculous. I didn’t tell a soul and buried myself further in denial.

And then I did what any sensible, cash-strapped person does: I went to graduate school and shouldered more debt, becoming the ultimate cliché. I did, at least, have the lucidity to choose the cheaper one-year program over the mind-numbingly costly three-year program. On top of that, after I graduated, I decided to move to one of the most expensive cities (San Francisco) and work at a non-profit organization. Oh, and I absolutely had to live by myself in a cute little apartment in the heart of the city. Makes perfect sense, right?

I quickly upgraded my non-profit job to a better paying one, but I still wasn’t earning a sufficient income. My closest friends were investment bankers and attorneys and management consultants, successful people making six to seven figure salaries — I was too ashamed to admit that I couldn’t keep up with their lifestyle and did my best to maintain appearances. I still paid more than the minimum for my credit card bills, but it was getting harder and harder to do. I was simply living beyond my means. I secretly cried when friends asked me to be a bridesmaid because I knew that it would set me back financially even more severely (bachelorette parties at a resort in Napa! Taffeta dresses! Airfare to various parts of the country!). Weddings, I found out, require serious funds even if you’re not the one getting married and a lot of people in my life were getting married. I watched in horror as the numbers ballooned, the interest multiplying like bunnies on Viagra. The year was 2000 and I was $22,600 in debt. And this was credit card debt alone — my grad school loan payments hadn’t even started yet (an additional $18,000 in the pipeline). My salary? $39,500. Technically, I owed more than my entire salary, and I finally understood what had happened to my college friend and that her nonchalance had been an out-and-out facade.

Enter M. As soon as we started dating, it was clear that this was a man who valued his Ben Franklins, and he loved to talk about money. He was going through his own financial woes as his business flailed in the dot com bust, but he was a scrimper and a saver and thought nothing of eating only toast and sleeping in a bunk bed among five Chinese renters in a fleabag apartment (we called it “Fight Club”), just to ensure he had enough money in the bank. There was no way I was going to tell him about my dirty secret; I knew I represented his worst nightmare. He seemed reluctant to be in a committed relationship, so I figured I was safe, and in the meantime, I was relieved that we went on low-budget dates.

A year passed, and much to my surprise, we were still dating. We’d exchanged “I love you”s and he’d given me a David Sedaris book. He’d ridden his bicycle across the country because he’s just that way, and I’d flown out to rendezvous with him in Montana and then to Indiana to meet his parents. I knew, deep deep down, he was the guy for me. Yet, I still hadn’t told him about my debt and it was killing me.

On the sly, like a women haunted by a banshee, I’d sprung into desperate action to loosen my financial noose. I found a second job as a night dispatcher. I made excuses when friends invited me out. I ate less. I researched online and learned how to consolidate my balances onto lower rate cards. I even called up credit card companies to waive my fees. I chipped away at my debt monster, and was able to painstakingly bring it down to about $16,000 in 12 months. My progress was slow and I would still have to contend with the grad school payments that would be kicking in shortly, but at least it was going in the right direction. But I was worried…at this rate, freedom from debt would take much longer than I expected.

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It was a frigid, clear night in the winter of 2001 and I had decided it was time. I was going to tell him. I wanted to be completely honest with M, to finally unload this secret I’d been holding onto for so, so long. We were walking somewhere – heading to a movie, I’m sure. My whole body was shaking, I was sweating profusely even though I could see my breath coming out in billowy, filmy clouds.